Luke swore sometimes he remembered sand. He knew it was impossible because he had been born and raised on Coruscant, but sometimes he thought he remembered it.
Leia said that she remembered a planet that she later claimed was a lot like Alderaan when she came back from a visit. Luke went himself, but the planet and the one of his memories were nothing alike. His planet had twin suns he recalled, but the only one that was like that was Tatooine and he had never gone to the Outer Rim before.
Luke and Leia Skywalker were born and raised on Coruscant. Their mother died after Lord Vader choked her almost to death. The doctors were barely able to save them. The Dark Lord then amplified his sin by betraying and murdering their father. They had always been kept hidden from him for this purpose. So that he would never know they were coming, never know they were preparing themselves for revenge. Not that they needed to hide too much. Darth Vader never spent much time on Coruscant. He was more often found on the front lines putting down any hint of rebellion and killing off Jedi. But when he did come to the palace they hid themselves both physically in their room and in the Force, using their hatred for the man to block their presences.
And they did hate him.
Emperor Palpatine had shown them the footage of what happened on Mustafar. There was no sound, but they saw that their mother had trusted the Sith Lord (they couldn't see him well, his back remained turned to the camera and the footage was bad anyways but Sidious said it was Vader and they felt the truth in his words) and that he had choked her. The Emperor explained that he, Palpatine, had been a friend of their parents, even showed footage of conversations with their father, of how he helped their mother during the problems with the Trade Federation. But he couldn't kill Vader until he had a replacement. So they had devoted themselves to training relentlessly. Luke had focused on espionage, interrogation and battle strategy and tactics. Meanwhile his sister devoured politics, manipulation, and force deceptions and illusions. They both labored on saber play and using the force. They were truly the children of Anakin Skywalker the Emperor claimed with pride.
They trusted the Emperor, up to a point. He was the only one, living, they ever interacted truthfully with. Everyone else knew them under aliases. But he had practically raised them in a way. He had arranged their teachers (killed as soon as they became no longer necessary), their room, the food they ate, and the clothes they wore – everything came from him. But they knew that they could never trust him completely, he was a Sith after all. They were both Sith, violating the rule of two, but they were twins. They knew that Palpatine planned to turn them against each other eventually, but they could no more stop trusting one another than stop being related. They had slept in the same room since they were infants and continued now into adulthood. They never slept in the bed of anyone they were having sex with, the few times they indulged. Always with one sibling mediating nearby, staying alert for danger when the other had their guard down. Force help you of course if you caught one of the twin's eye for long. Each, it was discovered, had inherited their father's jealously and possessiveness in spades and neither would surrender first place in the other's heart so easily.
Sleep, they knew, made you vulnerable. So Luke slept in the bed next to the door and Leia in the bed next to the window. Either one opening would ignite two blood-red sabers in the hands of two yellow-eyed demons. They had been together since the womb and would fight back-to-back. But Luke was the only one who remembered sand.
.
The day Vader died had not been planned. He had arrived unexpectedly and came across Leia. Luke had been coming to meet her and froze upon seeing their parents' killer. They all remained still for a moment; Leia and Vader staring at each other and Luke watching, tucked in the shadow of a connecting hall. It was Vader who had broken the breathless silence.
"Padme?" he managed to say, voice rich with disbelief. That was all Luke needed to slip into action. Leia had known what he was doing instantly. She distracted Vader, snarling at him and proudly proclaiming herself the daughter of Padme Amidala Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker. Then she accused the man with bitter, biting words, radiating hatred, of her mother's murder. Asking him how it felt to have her life drain away, to betray someone who had trusted him so. Leia had always had an acid tongue and she was in top form today.
Finally Vader, who had been crumbling under the emotional assault, managed to ask how she was alive.
"What? You didn't think we'd make it?"
"We?" There was a sort of choked hope in the words that made Luke hesitate for a moment, but only a moment. The light murmured that he should question, examine. But the darkness hissed that Vader only hoped that he could kill their mother again, hoped he would have a chance to cause their family more pain than before. And Luke had been dark for a long, long time.
"Yes" Luke had whispered softly next to the helmet, "we." Then he had ignited his saber, pressed against the armor, driving it though the machine man's heart, avenging their parents once and for all. The emotions the Sith Lord had let off were all they could have hoped for. The intoxicating mix of betrayal and despair in particular was wonderful. They had brought the body before Emperor Palpatine and he had praised them. Then Luke had climbed the steps to the throne and knelt to receive his name and the position of apprentice.
.
Darth Patroclus snapped wake. He was dreaming of sand again. This time it was of one of the Emperor's hands killing a couple (moisture farmers though how he knew that was beyond him) and taking a crying toddler. Then seeing the hand present the babe to the Emperor and being killed on the spot, forever silenced. He had experienced the dream before, sometimes with a red-haired Jedi dueling and dieing added to the mix.
He rolled out of bed and got prepared for the day, sending a nudge through the force to Darth Gayle. His sister was never an early riser. Leia awoke with a start and glared at her twin's back, knowing very well that he could sense it through the Force and that Luke didn't care one way or another.
He left the room and went to his master. The Lord Patroclus knelt before taking his place on the platform, as regal as the Lord Vader had been before him. He surveyed the entering groups with icy eyes, as blue as his father's had been behind a skull mask, though he would never know that. Occasionally the eyes would flash yellow and the people would cower. Hearing the petitioners beg for one thing after another his thoughts began to drift, landing on sand.
Darth Patroclus swore sometimes he remembered sand.
Then he shook his head to clear away the murmurs of a denied destiny and a long lost hope as they faded away into the almost-forgotten sand.
.
.
A/N: Patroclus means Glory to my Father, Gayle means Joy of the Father. Palpatine has his own sense of humor.